DAWN FRENCH'S new book has just hit the shelves and she is talking chapters – chapters starting, chapters ending, chapters turning out how you never in a million years thought they would.

But Dawn’s not discussing the chapters of her new novel, Oh Dear Silvia.

She is talking about the real stuff, the chapters of her life – her marriage to Lenny Henry ending, finding a new relationship, her daughter leaving home and her mother dying.

The chapter now open in 55-year-old Dawn’s life story would most certainly be entitled “Happy” or perhaps “Shiny”.

Just over a year ago, she began dating Mark Bignell, a therapist who co-founded a charity to help former drug users and alcoholics.

Now she admits she has totally fallen for him and claims the new book is even dedicated to “Biggs”.

There’s no doubt that the way this story has panned out has hit Lenny Henry’s ex-wife as a total surprise.

“I definitely didn’t think I would meet someone else,” said Dawn. “I 100 per cent thought I would be on my own – but that didn’t bother me.

“I was enjoying having time to myself. I remember one particular day when I was walking my dog in the morning, which I do every morning by the sea where I live.

“It was a beautiful morning and I was thinking, ‘Oh God, what a lovely day, and there’s my lovely dog, and what a lovely view and oh, look at that lovely plant and I’m meeting my friend later and that’ll be lovely’.

“My mum was alive then and my daughter seemed to be sorted. I was happy writing, I was living in Cornwall where I am from, and I thought, ‘Life is good, life is very good’. I felt that I really didn’t need a bloke to be happy.

“I thought it would be sad if I didn’t have a cuddle with somebody again, but I was having the odd date with people so that wasn’t the case. But I didn’t need to live vicariously through a man.

“Then, of course, that’s when I met him, just a couple of days later.”

“Him” being Mark, whom Dawn is still attempting to keep out of the spotlight so he can continue his work privately.

“I had known him for a long time and my mum knew him,” said Dawn.

“But because I was married then, I hadn’t looked at him like that. And then I did look at him like that and since then, it’s gone from strength to strength.”

Many women in their 50s, who have emerged from a 25-year marriage to finally spend time on their own, might be reluctant to throw themselves back into a relationship.

But Dawn insists she had no fears as to how this life chapter might play out.

“I just can’t think about what might go wrong. I’m an optimist,” said Dawn.

“But maybe you have to get to that place where you are happy with yourself on your own before you are prepared to open up again to another relationship.

“And then, if you fall for someone, you fall for them. And that’s that.

“It’s odd, though, because I had thought I’d be married to Len forever and then I wasn’t and I thought, ‘OK, this is my life now’, and then that wasn’t. So really, you never know anything.”

Dating in her 50s must certainly be different to when she got together with Lenny, 54, when the pair were both on the alternative comedy circuit in the early 1980s. “Yes,” she agreed. “Well, there are kids to consider and they come first. Everybody is happy now.”

But Dawn firmly believes that this new happiness has been made possible only by her and Lenny ending their marriage in a good way – by closing that chapter well, they have both been able to start new ones. Lenny is now dating theatre producer Lisa Makin.

Dawn explained: “When we knew what was going to happen, we went home to Cornwall and talked about everything. We still loved each other very much, and still do, so we looked after each other.

“We said, ‘Before other people find out what, let’s make sure we have everything sorted about how we want to do this. Let’s leave nothing unsaid’.

“I’d always advocate to myself and others not to have unsaid things. I’m known among my friends for saying things I probably shouldn’t sometimes, but I have to get things out in the air.”

But surely talking a dying marriage over and over must be hideously painful. “Yes, it was,” says Dawn, simply. And isn’t there generally a situation where one partner wants the marriage to finish more than the other?

She went on: “I think maybe one of us did, then the other one did, and then the other did over a period of time and then in the end we thought, ‘Oh, actually maybe we both do’.

“In that time before other people knew, we got a bit drunk, talked and were very good friends.

“We knew it wasn’t possible to continue on, but we knew it was possible to make it a good ending.

“You can’t have a good new beginning otherwise and we had to do it for both of us to have a good next stage.”

And so the pair bared their souls and talked through 25 years of marriage.

“It was extremely revealing and very upsetting, but I am really glad we did it because we have clearly moved on,” said Dawn.

“It had been a very happy marriage for a very long time and you don’t stop looking after or caring for each other. I don’t think it’s brave to talk about what has happened. I think it is survival.

“Maybe if you were furious with somebody that would be different. We were sad but we shared the sadness and decided how to deal with it.”

That ending enabled Dawn to move into her new life as a single woman, working and caring for the couple’s daughter, Billie, who is now 21.

“I had a period of adjustment then,” says Dawn. “I had been used to living with that one person for a very long time, but we called each other a lot.

“And then you have to stop doing that and gradually stop being the go-to person for the other. But we have a kid together so, of course, there is contact. But I think we moved on pretty well.”

Between marriage and finding a new relationship, Dawn was able to indulge in a period of alone time.

“I think that was what I yearned for,” she says. “I think all women do to an extent, for a short while to be nobody’s mother, nobody’s daughter, nobody’s sister, nobody’s wife – but then to be able to step back in again, too.

“And when you do step away from it all, it’s fascinating how quickly you want to plug back into it.”

Dawn’s new book, Oh Dear Silvia, also deals with the different roles women play – as mother, daughter, wife, friend and sister.

She said: “It is about how we are all different things to different people. And if you draw a composite picture of a person how they are seen by others, it is like pulling a jigsaw together.”

Dawn is no longer a wife, and, sadly, following the death of her mother earlier this year, no longer a daughter. For now, Dawn’s roles have changed – now she is a mother to Billie and a partner to Biggs.

“Things change,” she shrugs. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I have to be confident about it. It’s just the way I am.”